Political Memes [rant]

Both Socialism and Capitalism in their pure forms are evil, for different reasons.

A limited form of Capitalism is needed to give incentive for people to work and plan for the future.

A limited form of Socialism is needed to provide public services such as highways, social safety nets, public schools, firetrucks, etc.

All countries currently claiming Socialism or Communism are merely thinly disguised dictatorships. Any functioning government in the modern world must combine features of each.

When my rabid Republican friends post memes about the horrors of Socialism in Venezuela, they are ignoring the fact that it is not a socialist country. That is only what the current leaders are calling it. It is a violent dictatorship run by wealthy thugs just like several others in South and Central America. When they post memes about the horrors of Communism in Russia and China, the same is true. They are ignoring how both countries are long-term dictatorships that allow limited Capitalism in order to help grow their economies and provide a better living for their leaders.

When my rabid Democratic friends post memes about Che Guevarra, they neglect to mention he was a murderous thug who did nothing to advance his society. When they post memes demanding increased social services, they also don’t want to pay more taxes to support them. They also don’t want to pay attention to the very real effects of the Bell Curve on Education. No child left behind means that everyone has to be dragged down to the same level. Years ago, Jerry Pournelle said that if a foreign country had forced our current Education system on us, we would rightly consider it an act of war.

The bottom line is that the leadership of both parties are bought and paid for by the military industrial complex and their owners, just as Ike warned us about back in the late 50s.

Can we fix this? Maybe… If we learn to work together.

If you have one evening a week where you spend three or four hours staring at the idiot box, turn the damn thing off and attend a local City or County Council meeting. Listen carefully to how local issues are resolved. If you feel strongly about something, research the hell out of it so you don’t sound like a fool, then stand up and say your piece. If we all spent just a couple of hours a week involved in local politics, we could change things on the ground floor. This has the very real chance of changing things upstream, at the state, and eventually, federal level.

And just one more time, for the record… the United States is NOT a Democracy. It is a Constitutional Republic.

A true Democracy, just like pure Communism, Theocracy, and Monarchy, only work for very small, simple groups of people. They all have been tried many times in the past and failed.

So please, in the meantime, stop with all these stupid politcal memes.

Thank you for reading this far. As usual, comments and critiques are welcome.